Zane Finger, farm operations manager at Hog Island Oyster Company, shows us how they farm and harvest oysters in Marin County. Finger estimates there are 13 million oysters in Hog Island's 160 acres of water.

Media: Alix Martichoux / SFGATE

Editor's Note: This article is part of a series exploring local brands and regional food in the Bay Area. For more behind-the-scenes looks at iconic Bay Area institutions, click on the related links below.

For seafood and oyster lovers, the vision of a circle of freshly shucked oysters atop a bed of pebbled ice, a cold beer or glass of wine within reach, is an ideal scenario. Many couples construct this exact formula on Feb. 14 for a romantic Valentine's Day.

But the simplicity of raw oysters on a half shell belies the work it takes to get them onto those metallic trays. It's easy to imagine a seamless journey from water to tableside when sitting at the picnic tables of Hog Island Oyster Company's outpost in Marshall, or at the Ferry Building location with its floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Bay — but it's not.

That oyster on ice, pre-slurp, is the product of close to two years of work. Every oyster defied the odds, fighting off a virus that takes nearly half the crop each year, floating in the water in mesh bags and being sorted numerous times — all before making its way to your table.

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In a side room of the Hog Island Oyster Farm in Marshall, employees are gathering at 8 a.m., a meeting time not set by bosses, but selected by the tides.

Six-foot-tall whiteboards take up an entire wall, with diagrams indicating waves and times that someone on the team has meticulously tracked and drawn, along with a top-down sketch of the rows and rows of oyster beds that make up the underwater farm.

Employees are coming through the door in waves, some with coffee and some with dogs, all dressed in warm layers to prepare for a trip onto the water. As the time nears for everyone to head out, the room breaks out into stretches: deep knee bends, arm windmills and neck rolls, anything to get ready for the day of hauling heavy bags and racks of oysters on and off the boat — all while dressed in cumbersome boots and waders.

Once out on the water, Tomales Bay doesn't disappoint. It's a crisp February morning and out on the crystal-clear water it feels invigorating to move along the waves at a fast clip, tagging behind the four-man crew that will be working the lines.

A plate of oysters served at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, Calif. is the result of two years of careful work.

A plate of oysters served at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, Calif. is the result of two years of careful work.

Photo: Alix Martichoux / SFGATE

Photo: Alix Martichoux / SFGATE

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A plate of oysters served at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, Calif. is the result of two years of careful work.

A plate of oysters served at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, Calif. is the result of two years of careful work.

After a 10-minute ride, the boats slow to an area marked off with PVC pipes that stick out of the water and signal the location of the 160-acre farm. It's here that the oysters live in mesh bags and racks by the row, like a vegetable farm. The boat moves alongside the rows as crewmembers glance at markers to find the line of oysters they're looking for.

The Pacific oyster accounts for 95 percent of the bivalves that Hog Island grows, but there are also Kumamoto, European Flats and Olympia oysters being raised in Tomales Bay. The beginnings of each oyster actually start in Humboldt Bay, where Hog Island built a hatchery for oysters two years ago, with the idea being to become sustainable and provide oyster seed for oyster farmers.

In Humboldt Bay, employees keep a close eye on each oyster's growth. Each one goes through a process of separating and sorting before the oysters are then brought to their final home in Tomales Bay at the mighty measurement of 3/4 of an inch. There the oyster grows until it reaches a length of about three or so inches (depending on the species) — all while going through more of the screening process to get to its final (eating) size.

At that growth point in Tomales Bay, the oyster's time is up. A hook is attached to a line of oyster-filled bags and an operator turns on the crank, slowly pulling sack after sack onto the boat. The bags are stacked, totaling about 300 bags harvested a day. Each bag easily contains about 200 oysters and the day's haul is estimated to be at 40,000 oysters for this morning's harvest. It can be up to 80,000 on a higher production day, according to Zane Finger, Farm Operations Manager with Hog Island.

Hog Island uses two oyster farming methods; one uses mesh lay-flat bags that settle on the ground and another is a rack and bag method that sits the mesh bags above the mud flap and keeps water flowing around the oysters, which to some produces a better-quality oyster.

"One of the reasons Tomales Bay is a great place to grow oysters is we have good water temperatures," said Finger. "It's a pretty productive area, we're close to the shelf and we get some good upwelling which brings good nutrients to the oysters so they have a lot of stuff to eat."

13 million oysters ... to start

Standing out in the middle of 3-foot-deep water (the height of which the crew was doing its harvesting) surrounded by rows and rows of oysters, it's not obvious there are 13 million oysters sitting below the surface of the water.

"We have to realize a lot of that's gonna die because of the virus," Finger said. "We put a lot out there because we know a lot [won't make it]."

That's why the farm is so large — it's all part of a numbers game.

Tomales Bay, like other parts of the world, is fighting off a very specific disease known as Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome, and the group works to limit the number of affected oysters on the farm.

The oyster virus is not transmittable to humans, but the effect of the disease does weigh heavily on the number of oysters that will ultimately be harvested. By Finger's estimate, only 50 percent of the oysters out in Tomales Bay will survive and the company's looking at various methods to help the stock survive Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome.

"We're constantly trying ourselves and working with universities and other organizations to figure out how we can selectively breed them to help with mortality rates with this virus," said Finger.

At the end of the year, the harvest is in the ballpark of 3.5 million oysters, along with a share of clams and mussels. Paired with the broader issue of ocean acidification, the humble oyster is looking at a number of factors that could prevent each mollusk from growing.

"We understand that the marine environment is a very sensitive habitat and we really try to treat it that way," said Finger.

"One of our big challenges is getting everyone on board and [realizing] our net environmental impact is good. When everything's said and done, the ecosystem is hopefully a better place with us here."

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Back at the farm, with bags and racks of oysters in tow, the bounty of oysters is unloaded into a sorting area. The destiny of a good percentage of these oysters is that they will make their way to holding tanks and eventually the table for Hog Island's customers — about 95 percent of the supply goes to customers in the Bay Area.

A number of those plucked from the ocean, however, will live to see another day: The smallest oysters will be brought back to the bed to continue the growing process.

Hog Island itself is in the midst of a growth spurt, as the 35-year-old company has been expanding at a fast pace in the past few years, a far cry from its humble beginnings under co-founders John Finger and Terry Sawyer (who, as company lore has told it, began the business using a borrowed boat and a borrowed $500 to start).

Along with an expansion of its restaurant at the San Francisco Ferry Building in 2014, a plot of land that Hog Island was leasing out to store shellfish and for equipment repair was also placed for sale and snapped up by the company. Conveniently located across the street from its farm, the group has ambitions to start some gardens on its new 250-acre plot of land, in hopes that it could help supplement the group's restaurants. That dream, however, is still in progress as the company is seeking the proper permitting to get things rolling.

The company has also bought a longtime Marshall favorite, Tony's Seafood Restaurant in January 2017, and is doing a restoration of the building this winter ahead of its springtime reopening under chef Matt Shapiro. The plan is to stick close to the traditional menu while expanding it to include new dishes, as the restaurant comes up on its 70th year of business.